Pave Your Own Road: Redux
by Daemon McRae
Summary: Rewriting my first Teen Titans fanfiction. Same premise. Same characters. Mostly the same story. Better writing, some core changes, and longer chapters. Have fun. Yes, OC warning.


Pave Your Own Road: Redux

Author's Note: Since I can't read the original version of this story without cringing horribly, I've decided to rewrite it. Some core elements will be changed, and you can pick whichever continuity you want. DC, after all, has a multiverse. Personally? I'm considering this redux the official version. I don't know how far I'm going to go with this, but I imagine it will be longer than the original. This also means that I (may) be redoing and finishing the second book.

Chapter One

It was once said that any fool with a typewriter can write a beginning. But endings are hard. Everything has to fit together. All the questions have to be answered, even thoughmost of the time that's not the case. It's easy to start writing, but making sense of it all and tying everything up in a nice little bow is the hard part.

The problem is, sometimes you don't remember the beginning. And sometimes the ending isn't nice and neat. Most people aren't aware that the stories they read are pieced together before a beginning and end even exist. I have the advantage of remembering all of it.

I have the misfortune of living it.

I'm not here for your pity. That's too easy. I could just write about all the terrible things, make myself look good, and you'd just sit there feeling bad for me because I'm the good guy and bad things happened.

I could sit here and lie to you. But I won't. Sure, I started the good guy. Not sure what I am anymore. They keep making up new words. But if you want the whole story, let's start from the easiest point. Let's start from the beginning.

I'm a metahuman. We're more common than you think. Some of us are born with it. SOme of us come into it either on accident or because we asked for it. I'm not going to say I never asked for this. Because I did ask for it. Oh boy was I ever asking for it. I sometimes wonder if things would have gone differently had I finished high school like a normal kid.

Before Egypt. Before the army. Before the Captain, and the team. Before the JLA intervened.

I started off with basically everything any normal kid could want: family, friends. Doing okay in school. I could have gone to college.

Well, I did go to college, but the only thing I learned was, well, let's just say things would have been different.

Most people hear about how all of these heroes got their powers, and assume they've been given a gift out of a bad situation. The reality, I've come to find, is that most of our bad situations never end. It's like dreaming while you're awake. SOme part of you still can't accept that it's reality, but you motor on anyway.

My name is Daniel. Daniel Verres. I'd worry about giving out my real name if I thought it meant really much of anything now.

But back then, I was just known as Reflex.

Why? Because teenagers are idiots.

[break]

The beginning of the story isn't _really_ where it all started, but it's worth talking about first.

I don't remember the year, but I was living in Titans Tower. I wasn't a Titan by rights, really. Just kind of an intern. I think I know why interns all kill people now.

"Reflex! Open the door!" _Yes master, it's not like you have a skeleton key to all the doors, master._

I always hated that noise the doors make when they open or close. It sounds like someone taking a deep breath and I always found myself waiting for them to exhale. "What do you want, Cyborg?"

"Man, did you eat the last piece of pizza?"

"Nope. Ask Beast Boy," I kind of shrugged him off, and tried to go back to whatever it is I was doing that I assumed to be more important than cheesy cardboard leftovers.

"If I found out you did, dude, I'll-"

"Do what?" I asked, and teleported behind him. That was my power back them. Relatively simple. Line-of-sight teleportation. I gave him the old Three Stooges "Woob-woob-woob-woob-woob" and teleported down the hall. A couple of jumps and I was on the other side of the building in seconds.

Which, to be honest, wasn't much better. The other side of the building was Raven's room. Probably for a reason. I looked around to see if anyone was nearby, and slowly slinked away from her door. She creeped me out, so I did my best to avoid her. Which most of the time didn't help. Psychics have this tendency to _know_.

As if on cue, the door slid open, and Raven walked out. "Reflex? What are you doing here?"

I turned around a bit sheepishly. Teleporting away from Raven never really worked, and doing so would make her suspicious. Of course, so did the Solid Snake-style creeping around. "Running from Cyborg. He thinks I ate his pizza and I kind of Larry-Curly-and-Moe'd my way out of there."

She seemed more than a little uninterested in this, and went back to reading her book. I assumed that's what she did all day. Either way, she wasn't bothering me.

Of course, now that Cyborg was searching the building for me, I couldn't very well go back to my room. So I decided to walk around. And by walk I mean lazily teleport to every corner of hallway, glance around, and move on.

Which you would also do with that kind of power, so don't give me that look.

I somehow found my way to Terra's room, where-

-oh, Terra? Yeah, about her. After she'd come back with no memories and started at that prissy private school, Beast Boy kind of went into a depression. So after a month of green being the new emo, the Titans pulled this great big elaborate scheme ( I wasn't there for it, so I assume it was more than just a door-to-door salesman ploy), kidnapped her and had Raven poke at her mind till her memories came back.

At which point she tried to kill them all, because she didn't remember the whole saving-the-city-killing-Slade part. That got fixed somehow, which is probably another much more impressive story of heroics and romance, and now (or, at the time) she sucked face with Beast Boy.

I don't know how some of these people function.

Anyway, I'd gotten to Terra's room, which was bigger than mine, (not that I'm bitter), where again, the door slid open. Because people forget that they're _motion-sensitive_. No, sure, we believe in security.

Fortunately, Terra wasn't in her room. Yet. She'd just come back from some place other than here, and was about to walk into her room, where she sees me. At her door. Which is open.

Now would be a great time to tell you that these people don't like me very much, and trust me little to none.

Not my fault.

"_What_ are you doing in my room?!" she growled.

I rolled my eyes like the snarky teenager tryhard I was. "Ok, first? Not in your room. See this flooring? This _hallway flooring_? In _the hallway? That I'm standing on?"_

She glared at me, her eyes glowing yellow. Which I never understood. How does terraforming lead to ocular illumination? Laser vision I can understand. Raven's power maybe. "How do I know you didn't just walk out of there?"

See, now that was a valid argument. "Logistically speaking, you don't. But I didn't. And I wouldn't. I don't really want to sit or stand on or around anything you two might have screwed on."

"_We're not having sex!"_ she yelled. The hallway shook a little.

"Look, I don't have time for- ok yes I do. But I really don't want to be a part of this conversation, so I'm leav-"

At which point the alarm sounded.

"-I'm going on a mission. Ciao," I finger-waved and pooped in behind her. Lay-Z-Boy walking my way to the living-room-slash-command-center.

Robin leaned over the console to stare aggressively at the screen. Which was bigger than him. "If you keep making that face it's gonna stick. Oh, wait," I said, falling in line with everyone else.

A noncommittal grunt told me he had no time for my shenanigans. "It's Dr. Light again."

"…what?" Are you serious? We caught him no shit like two weeks ago. Do they just kick him out of jail because he sucks there, too?" I couldn't believe we were going after this guy again. Could not believe it. "I swear to god if you say he's robbing a bank I'll teleport him into the middle of the god-damn ocean without his suit. Or Australia. Australia's great at killing people."

Robin gave me his best Batman glare. "We don't kill people."

"Of course not. That would be productive," I remark. The glares I get collectively from everyone tell me that that was one of the sentences that make them not like me.

[break]

We found Dr. Light outside a think tank on the edge of town, trying to walk away with some kind of prototype renewable energy source some genius had cooked up. It looked like a hand grenade recycled into a nite-lite.

"Thank god it wasn't a bank dude. I don't know if you can swim," I told him, when he finally noticed all of us standing there. This seemed to confuse him for a bit.

Not long enough to stop him from monloguing, no, of course not. "You don't stand a chance now that I have this! I have unlimited power now!"

"Dude, when was the last time you ran out of batteries before we kicked your face in?" Beast Boy quipped. I chuckled. It was funny.

He gave us the classic Dr. Light ® brand Blank Stare [patent pending], before giving up words in favor of blasting all of us.

Or, at least, where we were. The only one to take the hit was Cyborg. Because slow. Cyborg made a few grunting noises as he got hit, then stood up. "You're gonna pay for that!"

Before Dr. Light could reply, I teleported in front of him. "Will that be cash or card?" I asked, then grabbed his arms, and teleported straight up. I gave him a nice whip-crack throw back down, and poofed off to the side before I fell. He made a nice satisfying thud as he hit the ground. And a nicer crack.

Part of me hoped it was his bones, because him in the hospital would be more productive than prison. But no, it was just his suit.

Which was kind of funny, cause he started freaking out. "You fools Do you know what you've done?! This suit contains enough energy to glass a city block!"

I blinked at him. "_Then why would you fight someone in it?!"_ People started freaking out alongside him, so I did the responsible thing. I Grabbed his suit, teleported away with it (several times), and threw it into the bay.

Actually, it wasn't that many jumps. Why is everything worth money so close to the water?

It blew up rather fantastically once it got far enough under the surface. Drenched me, of course, but hell, it's water.

When I got back to the fight, the cops had shown up, and were escorting a suitless Dr. Light into a car. While my team glared at me. "…what?"

I'd barely finished the word before Robin was in my face. "You almost killed him! And his suit almost blew us all up!"

"And yet he walked away and the only thing that exploded was water. _I'm fine, by the way," _I emphasized. "It's not like I just teleported away a volatile explosive or anything."

Starfire flew in and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Robin, he is right. We are unharmed. And Dr. Light has been stopped. No one is injured and the only thing that has been broken is the suit Light wore."

Beast Boy chimed in. "Yeah, he didn't even get away with the energy thingy!"

Everyone stopped at that. "Where _is_ the energy thingy, anyway?" BB asked.

They all turned to look at me. "Oh, son of a bi-"

[break]

"I hate doing dishes," I groaned, staring at the huge stack of plates next to the sink. "Since when do you need this much dishware?"

"Since we needed a good way to keep you busy," Raven chided, not looking up from her book. I'd been punished by being given dish duty, and she'd been left to make sure I didn't teleport away to Zanzabar or something to get out of it.

"I still don't know why everyone's so upset. Even the scientist said it probably didn't work and that Dr. Light had taken it out of a scrap pile," I started filling the sink with water, dropping a small pile of ceramic and yuck in.

"You almost killed us," she said nonchalantly. Even I don't think she believed it.

"You and I both know that's a full-on lie. He's fine, we're fine, and Dr. Light shouldn't have been using such a volatile suit in combat anyway. Or hell, why he keeps robbing people. I think the only time we've beaten him faster was the time Terra clotheslined him with a stalactite." Aside from our conversation, the only sounds in the room were the scrubby-scrubby of the plates and the occasional turn of her page.

"True, but Robin needs to at least feel like he has some semblance of control over you. He isn't comfortable with your being military and working with us. Especially not when he doesn't get a say in the matter," she closed her book and stood up, and a few dishes floated towards her.

"Well blame the JLA for that," I growled.

"I know, you don't have to tell me," she added, trying to diffuse… well, me.

We were both quiet for a bit, except for the dishes. At which point a thought came to mind, probably following a long chain of disjointed ones that probably didn't relate to the question at all. "How is it that you and Starfire don't seem to be as on edge around me? Robin and Cyborg think I'm some John Wilkes Booth in waiting, Terra assumes I'm some creepy stalker, and… well Beast Boy gets along with everyone, actually."

"Because you haven't actually done anything worn since you got here aside from some dry humor and bad jokes. Beast Boy essentially just does all of that with more cheer," she explains

"Oh dear god please tell me I'm not turning into Beast Boy," I beg as I almost drop a plate.

"No, not really. At least you know you're not funny."

I wince a little. "Ouch. And the ref takes a point away."

Later that evening, after all the dishes were done and people stopped glaring at me long enough for me to get back to my room, my phone rang. "What?!" I snapped.

God I wish I had caller ID. "Is that any way to talk to a superior officer, soldier?!" Yelled my Captain.

"NO MA'AM." I barked. I almost stood to attention, despite the fact that I'm on th phone.

"…you can stop saluting, Verres. You're on the phone," she added, in a much softer tone.

I looked up at my hand. "How did you-"

"Instinct. Now, I heard about how you almost blew up the bay area today."

"Not my fault."

"It never is. Look, you did well and all, but please try not to blow up experimental projects from government facilities. I don't like paperwork," she sighed. She was obviously staring at a lot of it.

"I'd offer to help, but my handwriting is atrocious," I tried not to laugh as I laid back down on my bed. "So how is the rest of the League of Not Awesome, Captain Ari?"

Another sigh. Or groan. Whichever. "Please stop calling it that. Just because you're the only person in my detachment with powers doesn't mean you get to demean the rest of them. We can all still kill you with a q-tip."

"But you won't," I reminded her.

"But we won't. Now, get some sleep. You'll be seeing me soon." Click.

"…shit."

Author's Note: I told you it would be different.


End file.
